Looking to turn the higher rates that New Orleans businesses and residents now pay for sewer and water service into major overhauls of its ailing pipes, the Sewerage & Water Board has $124.3 million on hand to finance capital improvement projects through the end of the year, agency officials announced Wednesday (June 18).

That sum is a large portion of the total $262.5 million the water board borrowed Tuesday through the sale of two bonds that will also pay off some existing bonds and help refinance its debts. The agency's staff announced the deal during the first full board meeting with new members since voters approved sweeping changes to its governing structure in October.

The investment marks the first time in at least a quarter century that the often cash-strapped S&WB has financed its brick-and-mortar projects for a full calendar year, General Superintendent Joseph Becker said.

"This is the first time in my experience that this capital program has been fully funded," said Becker, who has worked for the S&WB for 27 years. "For the last nine years, it basically hasn't been funded except with other people's money."

He was referring to the S&WB relying on the flow of federal and state tax dollars as it struggled to right itself after Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005. Those revenue streams have all but dried up as time puts that storm further in the past.

The 115-year-old S&WB has struggled to pay for much-needed repairs to its aging water and sewer systems. Officials have estimated that up to 40 percent of New Orleans' drinking water is lost through leaky and cracked pipes every year. And in 1998, the Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency issued a federal consent decree ordering the S&WB to fix its sewer pipes, which leak wastewater into the ground and nearby waterways.

The water board had made each of its deadlines under that order until the federal levees failed during Katrina, flooding the city. It has renegotiated its timeframe for the sewer repairs twice since 2010 and is close to brokering a third extension with the Justice Department that would push completion of the massive project back to October 2025.

Revenue from the rate hikes served as leverage for the bonds, officials said.

The rate increases began Jan. 1, 2013, raising water and sewer rates for S&WB customers by about 10 percent every year through 2020. The measures are expected to raise an extra $583 million for the water board. The City Council agreed to the hikes in December 2012 after the S&WB promised various reforms, including that of its governance.

The newly borrowed money - $77 million for the water system and another $47.3 million for sewerage pipes - will be used to help finance 46 projects already underway and jumpstart a host of new ones planned to begin this year, officials said. You can review the S&WB's 2014 capital improvements plan here.

When the S&WB looked to sell the two bonds in June, potential investors collectively offered more than $2.7 billion as they jockeyed for the deal, officials said. That translates to the S&WB attracting "a lot more interest than it had bonds to sell," S&WB spokesman Robert Jackson said.

"In this transaction, we have laid a road map which I think is very clear and is an excellent road map," said Alan Arnold, a previous S&WB member who rejoined it this month as a representative of the city's debt manager, the Board of Liquidation. "We are in very, very good shape compared to when I was first on this board four or five years ago."

The City Council earlier this month had given the S&WB permission to borrow up to $315 million.

The agency has 30 years to pay off the new debt. The full amount of capital improvement money should be available July 2 after the final paperwork is signed, interim Executive Director Robert Miller said.

"By all accounts, it was a remarkably successful transaction," said Shawn Barney, one of the S&WB's financial advisers for the bond sale.